T-Boneis a massively-built spiritual ex-Marine, who uses fighting skills to stop prison rape. T-Bone’s latest letter:They put a guy in our pod who had got
into a fight in the kitchen. He said he had to fight a guy because several of
the food workers were coughing and sneezing over the food as it was being
prepared. In front of everyone in here, I asked him if that was going on all
the time and he said yes.

When they served chow after that, everyone
walked over to the trash can and dropped their trays in. That got the guards’
attention. Shortly after that, the commander came up here with the Strategic Response
Team (goon squad). He said that the food was safe to eat, so I said please eat
it then. Twenty guards looked at him. He wouldn’t eat it.

So a sergeant picked up a tray, looked
at it, took a bite and stopped. He extracted a piece of wood from his mouth.

The commander turned red and locked us
down. They stripped us naked, had us sit down with our hands on our heads and pepper-sprayed
four prisoners. They took those four to lockdown. The commander said if he
heard any more out of us, he would lock us down for a week.

Word got out to some of the other pods and
all hell broke loose with the other prisoners over the food. Sheriff Joe Arpaio
is crazy feeding us this stuff that is so nasty.

I still want to grab some of these
jokers in my pod by the neck and make them tell me who stole my stuff and make
them pay me, but I’m going to wait on God because that’s what my heart is
saying to do.

My leg is much better. I had to stop a
situation the other day, but I’ll write about that later.

Things have been on edge for some time
now because of the racist attitudes a lot of these guys have here. Apparently
the “fellas,” the guys who are in charge, who call the shots for the Mexicans
and the whites, said that none of their race can live with a black man. The
Mexicans and the whites will back each other up on this rule and will even riot
over it.

They moved a Native American guy in with
me and all hell almost broke out because I am black. I said, “Why are you guys
tripping? Why do you act like black people have an incurable disease or
something?”

The Native American guy moved out and
the guards moved a white guy in and the same thing happened. I couldn’t care
less what colour a person is.

The next thing that happened was a butt
bandit came up to me and said that a gay white boy in our pod is his, and that
I need to mind my own business if he wants to take him in the shower.

I said I couldn’t care less what he did
with his own body and all I can do is tell him the truth about things.

So the gay kid went into the shower with
him, and there were three other guys wanting their turn. I was in my cell,
reading, when someone yelled T-bone. I walked out and looked towards where the
yell came from.

The butt bandit and his friends saw me
and stopped. The gay kid came by my cell and said thank you, before rolling out
of the pod.

It’s a huge misconception in here that
gay people want to be harmed and/or gang raped because they are gay.

After we came off lockdown, I talked to
those guys. It simply came down to them not having the spirit of self-control.

One of them came up to me and tried to
take advantage of the fact that I am a Christian. He started yelling at me,
saying that I owed him this and that and he got up in my face. I didn’t owe
that guy anything at all. He was trying to play me with the old game of testing
me. He made a move like he was going to hit me and down he went.I know I have a long way to go. A
looooooong way to go. Self-control!

Jack is serving life without parole, and has terminal cancer. Throughout my incarceration, Jack was a positive influence. He encouraged me to keep writing, to enter short-story competitions, and we proofread each other’s chapters. Jack is seeking pen pals, so anyone interested please email me at attwood.shaun@hotmail.co.uk for his details.

It has been a rough go this last few
months or so. I have had two rather nasty bouts where my pain has gone off the
scale. The first was the last week in May. I had got up at my usual time of 4
AM to catch the BBC broadcast of world news, and get ready for work, when the
usual pain began to escalate rapidly. In a matter of just a few minutes I was
in absolute agony. It felt like some demented animal was trying to claw its way
out of my body.

The officer came through to do the 4 AM headcount
and saw me. He then activated an ICS emergency and requested a medical turnout.
By the time medical showed up, I was drenched in sweat, my breathing was rapid
and shallow, and I was unable to focus or respond to the most general of questions.

Medical, then loaded me in the van and
carted me off to the HUB, where they accessed my chemo port and began pushing
IV solutions of various drugs. They drew a gallon or so of blood (well it felt
like a gallon considering how many vials they took) and put a rush on the results
so that they could better understand how to treat me.

The rush results were returned
approximately 10 hours later. During that time, they continued to force the
various generic IV solutions into me. Somewhere around hour six, the pain began
to recede and eventually it re-established itself in its usual area and level. When
my test results did return the doctor stated that “my numbers were wonky, but
they did not explain why I was experiencing such severe pain.”

Because my pain had return to its usual
level, Medical decided to send me back to the yard and follow up with the
assigned nurse practitioner (who earlier cancelled my painkillers) for further
testing.

Things have been crazy in here. There has
been three deaths. I’ve been watching myself, meaning I’m being more aware and alert because I know I’ve made a few enemies. From what I’ve found out regarding the
deaths or killings, one was because of someone ratting on someone else.

I’ve been waiting to get my stolen stuff
back. It’s not been easy because so many of these people in here want to see me
lose it. They’re just like that guy Cannonball I smashed in

Tucson prison. They have no real concern
for anyone, just like him. They want to see someone hurt or bleeding.

I had words with a young man about my
stuff that was stolen. He called me out. He said that I was a punk, which meant
that he wanted to fight me to the death. I walked away. He said to meet him in cell
1 because it’s bigger.

He was all mouth. He tried to talk his
way around it, but his people, the blacks, told him to get in cell 1 and handle
it. I hit him with a right to the solar plexus, a left to the short rib and a
hand to the left side of the neck. Down he went and stayed. I mopped that guy
up in 23 seconds. An old man afterwards told me he had timed it.

I had to go to the doctors because my
leg was hurt.

I need to sit down and thank God for
everything he’s doing in my life because they just moved four guys out who were
up to no good. I’ll write you later.